nding from the
hills to meet a press of labour in the autumnal plains. With them
he hoped to issue forth unchallenged on the following morning; but
Wilfrid's sword had made lusty play; and, as in the case when the order
has been given that a man shall be spared in life and limb, Barto and
his fellow-assailants suffered by their effort to hold him simply half a
minute powerless. He received a shrewd cut across the head, and lay for
a couple of hours senseless in the wine-shop of one Battista--one of
the many all over Lombardy who had pledged their allegiance to the Great
Cat, thinking him scarcely vulnerable. He read the letter, dizzy with
pain, and with the frankness proper to inflated spirits after loss of
blood, he owned to himself that it was not worth much as a prize. It was
worth the attempt to get possession of it, for anything is worth what
it costs, if it be only as a schooling in resolution, energy, and
devotedness:--regrets are the sole admission of a fruitless business;
they show the bad tree;--so, according to his principle of action, he
deliberated; but he was compelled to admit that Vittoria's letter was
little else than a repetition of her want of discretion when she was on
the Motterone. He admitted it, wrathfully: his efforts to convict this
woman telling him she deserved some punishment; and his suspicions being
unsatisfied, he resolved to keep them hungry upon her, and return to
Milan at once. As to the letter itself, he purposed, since the harm in
it was accomplished, to send it back honourably to the lieutenant, till
finding it blood-stained, he declined to furnish the gratification of
such a sight to any Austrian sword. For that reason, he copied it, while
Battista's wife held double bandages tight round his head: believing
that the letter stood transcribed in a precisely similar hand, he
forwarded it to Lieutenant Pierson, and then sank and swooned. Two days
he lay incapable and let his thoughts dance as they would. Information
was brought to him that the gates were strictly watched, and that troops
were starting for Milan. This was in the dull hour antecedent to the
dawn. 'She is a traitress!' he exclaimed, and leaping from his bed, as
with a brain striking fire, screamed, 'Traitress! traitress!' Battista
and his wife had to fling themselves on him and gag him, guessing him
as mad. He spoke pompously and theatrically; called himself the Eye of
Italy, and said that he must be in Milan, or Milan woul